Washington (Agencies): Recognizing US President Barack Obama’s support for its quest for permanent seat in the UN Security Council, India on Wednesday said the US support has come at a time when momentum is growing for the expansion of this most powerful wing of the world body.

"We deeply appreciate the fact that President Obama made that declaration of support for India's candidature as a Permanent Member of the Security Council. The US support has come at a very opportune time as this campaign (of UN Security Council reform) has been gathering momentum,” Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told reporters at a news conference here.

Rao is here to prepare for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to New Delhi in April.

"The subject of UN reform and the US support for it is obviously important because the US as a permanent member of the Security Council has made its position known on the expansion of the Security Council and on the inclusion of the countries like India. It has also supported the candidature of Japan as a permanent member," she said.

India along with Brazil, Germany and Japan, last week had revived a bid for permanent seats on the UNSC and hope for concrete action this year.

"There is also a larger issue of building support on the floor of the General Assembly for expansion in both permanent and non-permanent categories of the Security Council and that is a campaign that is ongoing," Rao said.

"Last week our external affairs minister was at the UN for the meeting of the G-4 countries – India, Japan, Brazil and Germany – on the subject of UN Security Council reform and the stage has now been reached where we have a very large number of countries that have expressed themselves in favour of expansion of in both the permanent and non-permanentcategories," Rao said.

India and the United States have also been discussing on a range of other issues at the UN and co-operation on UN and multilateral matters.

"There is a whole broad band of issues on which we co-operate in the UN," said she, adding: “We had discussion on the situation on Sudan, Ivory Coast, the issue of promoting development co-operation in continents like Africa .”